


Shade on a Sunny Street

by tigbit



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben presumes Rey is a ghost, Canon Rey, Christmas, F/M, Happy Ending, I will stress:, Modern AU Ben, Modern AU/Canon AU Crossover, Mutual Masturbation, References to Depression, author didn't mean for this to be a fix it fic, but it works as a fix-it fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:28:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21708241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigbit/pseuds/tigbit
Summary: Ben was shitty at house-hunting and he knew it.His realtor knew it too, and her patience for his shrugs and general lack of preference was wearing thin. No matter how hard he tried, Ben could not bring himself to care about wainscoting. Or the state of fascia. Or thewordfascia, as it ultimately reminded him of something that should be done in a spa.--In which Ben buys a house with a familiar ghost in the attic.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 229
Kudos: 921
Collections: TROS Reylo Fix-it Fics





	1. Chapter 1

Ben was shitty at house-hunting and he knew it. 

His realtor knew it too, and her patience for his shrugs and general lack of preference was wearing thin. Every appointment seemed to unveil new, unexpected depths to his apathy. She was left to chase even the mildest form of his opinion like a coked-up greyhound, latching onto his half-hearted gestures and where his eyes lingered in order to suss out what pleased him. No matter how hard he tried, Ben could not bring himself to care about wainscoting. Or the state of fascia. Or the _word_ fascia, as it ultimately reminded him of something that should be done in a spa.

It wasn’t all terrible. He learned things. By the twentieth house, Ben unintentionally started to recognize shoddy wiring. He learned to lift up rugs to check for damage, suspect mold under fresh paint, and side-eye nearby creeks. He did not seek to know these things, but now he knew them all the same.

He was partially resigned to buying whatever listing they visited next—mostly because the smile on his realtor’s face was getting strained but also because Ben was tired of living out of a suitcase in a motel. If it took a down payment and a mortgage to escape the hell of perpetual takeout, he’d settle for almost anything. 

\--

He pulled up to an unassuming bungalow on a Thursday afternoon. He tried not to look at the realtor as she swung her legs out of her car, too afraid he’d catch her saying a prayer for something tragic. A hurricane. A wayward planet. Anything to escape the hell of suffering through his company. 

She greeted him with a wave, though, and gamely bounced up the steps to unlock the Supra. 

“We’ve been in this neighborhood before,” she reminded him, guiding the keys out of the box. “You seemed to hate it less than the others, so I thought it was worth the time to return.” Her smile was weak, already laced with defeat. “Who knows? You might like it.” 

He shrugged. He might. 

Once she’d half-heartedly listed off the features (“There’s a patio out back. Very private. The kitchen has been recently redone, and from the look of the neighbors’ yards, the soil seems like it’d support some pretty ambitious landscaping. Not that you _have_ to landscape, ambitiously or otherwise. I know a guy who plants a good hedge”), they followed their usual routine. She did a terrible job of pretending she wasn’t scrolling through her Twitter feed and Ben loped out of the room to explore the rest of the house on his own. 

Ben had never been prone to fantasizing. As he walked from room to room, he didn’t dream about the memories he’d create in the den or the flowers he’d plant in the backyard. He had no wild delusions that any house of his would ever feel like a home. It was a base. Storage. Somewhere to cook and read and disturb neighbors with his reclusiveness. There wasn’t a neighborhood barbeque invitation he couldn’t professionally ignore. 

He made the routine checks, objectively nothing this and that. A new kitchen with not enough cabinets. A suspicious crack in the foundation and a basement that offered too many cozy corners for mice. A sufficiently tall showerhead. Good water pressure. He wouldn’t have pegged himself as the kind of person to care, but he did like the way the light filtered through the trees near the driveway. 

It was an old house with old bones. A place ingrained with memories—ruts in the wood from carelessly moved furniture; notches in the doorframe of a bedroom tracking the height of a child now long since grown; lighter patches of paint where pictures once stood. 

The attic was old-fashioned, reached by pulling down a frayed cord that birthed a set of wooden steps in need of a paint job. They creaked in a predictable way when he climbed them, ducking his head once he reached the top. 

Strangely, his first instinct was to grab a camera. This was a place gone long undisturbed, and he had a desire to capture it as it was: piles of paint flecks on the floor and a sea of dust that shifted with his breath. There was a single window, grimy and ancient, and a woman. 

Ben instinctively froze, hoping that the shadows helped to hide his bulk. His first thought: 

_Don’t scare her._

She was humming something low and toneless, her face turned toward the light. 

He stared. She looked achingly familiar, but not in a way that made sense. He’d never made a habit of meeting strangers, women or otherwise. He’d dated long enough to have every suspicion confirmed: he was too awkward, too distant and cold, too prone to forgetting the questions he was meant to answer. He had no sisters. No friends. 

He _knew_ this woman, though. Her profile, the slope of her nose and the tip of her ear, even the way she arranged her legs on the floor (nimble and infused with energy that promised she was ready for a quick escape), all of it was an itch longing to be scratched. 

It was unsettling, but not as unsettling as her transparency. 

The light bled through her form. She lacked a shadow. No breath moved the dust. 

Ben was staring at a ghost. 

The word bounced around his head until it lost meaning. He kept expecting her to disappear between one blink and the next, but she remained, still humming. 

His shifting weight coaxed a groan from the railing.

“Oh,” the ghost finally said, twisting to face him. It looked like she was squinting. “Hello.”

Somehow, Ben answered. “Hi.”

\--

Moving in took no time at all. Ben had no furniture. No pictures for the walls. The entirety of his wardrobe fit into the confines of his suitcase. 

His realtor stopped by on his first official night to drop off a laundry basket full of gifts. 

_Congratulations on your new home!_ the card said, and Ben wasn’t sure how to feel as he combed through a mountain of cleaning supplies, three in one shampoo bottles, body towels, and pre-mixed cookie dough. Mostly he just felt inadequate. A man grown and no, actually, he hadn’t worked out how he’d get dry after he took a shower. Towels had always just…been there. 

As the cookies baked, he considered his experience with ghosts. 

He’d always believed in them. Explicitly. He had vivid memories of trying to introduce Han and Leia to friends that didn’t actually exist. Whenever it happened, there was always a curious tilt to his mother’s head that never quite matched her words. 

_“There’s nothing there, Ben.” Even as she said it, her eyes seemed to snag on a shadow. Her words were too quick. “Why don’t you play outside?”_

_“Elliott hates the sun,” he explained, which wasn’t a lie but wasn’t the whole truth, either. Ben had never been overfond of their backyard. It was wild and unkempt—an afterthought in the face of his parents’ busy schedules. The last time he’d ventured out on the deck he’d been chased by a hornet._

_Sterner, now: “Elliott can’t hate the sun because Elliott doesn’t exist.”_

_Ben turned his head to the left. Elliott blinked at him, quiet and resigned. The end of his shirt was tattered, tugged slightly by an unseen breeze._

_“Ben?” His mother, again. “If you…if you play outside—alone—your dad will take you flying.”_

_Ben was too smart not to know the shape of a bribe, but his heart lurched anyway. It’d been_ weeks _since he’d sat in the cockpit. He missed the smell of fuel and the view of a world gone small, how his father wrapped him up in his favorite jacket if he pretended to be cold. He knew the indicators, now. One day_ he _would be a pilot, and then no one could ever keep him from the sky._

_A small, transparent hand brushed his own._

_Elliott’s teeth were badly broken. Little white icebergs adrift on a pink sea. His sad smile was hardly a smile, but Ben recognized it all the same._

_He was gone before Ben could speak a single word._

Over the years, the sightings had faded until he started to doubt they existed in the first place. Odds and logic said he’d been a child with an overactive imagination, but perhaps he’d grown uninteresting. Perhaps ghosts only bothered the curious.

Except there was a ghost in his attic and she’d said hello. And Ben was definitely uninteresting. He hadn’t had a curious thought in years. 

His ghost had thoughts. Many of them. 

It was a ritual, now: Ben pretended he needed to store something in the attic (shamefully, he’d resorted to toting up empty boxes) only to descend hours later, his ears full of her ghostly imaginings. 

He wasn’t quite sure where she was from. There were more worlds than his own, he knew, but he couldn’t get a handle on hers. She didn’t seem to have lived in one, but many. She spoke of deserts with endless oceans of sand and gods that blew destruction. Planets of ice. Airless, dark places with creatures large enough to swallow worlds whole. 

_Is that what happened to you?_ Part of him wanted to know. In the end, it felt too cruel. She’d tell him how she died or she wouldn’t, and he’d listen either way. 

The more she spoke, the more she seemed to remember. This was common. His childhood ghosts had told him so. Whatever mystery filled the cracks between death and ghosthood muddied the waters of memory. 

It was harder to find his own words. After all, what would he say? What was worth hearing? 

He was thirty two. His feet had stood on battlefields. He hated owning a phone. He stayed indoors too much, read too much, felt too much. Most people found him unpleasant. His job was remote. He could count the number of faces he saw in a week on one hand. 

She didn’t seem to mind, though. When he managed to speak, she listened with an intentness that was almost disconcerting. 

No matter where he looked, he could feel her eyes on his skin. She didn’t bother to hide it. 

“Are you—?” He gave up trying to explain what he did for a living. “Is there something on my face?”

Unabashedly, she continued to stare. “No.”

He told himself not to squirm. “Because you’re—it feels like you’re looking at my face.”

“Is that rude, where you’re from?” 

An odd question. “Sort of?”

“Oh.” She said it like he’d commented on the weather. A polite noise that meant she wasn’t truly interested. “It just looks familiar, is all.” 

“It’s…possible you met me when I was younger.” It was the only thing he could think to say, though he didn’t remember many girl ghosts. And judging by her age, she would have been an infant. Too young for words. But who was he to say how the afterlife worked? It was unlikely that ghosts bothered with linear time. 

“No,” she said firmly. “I’ve only just arrived.”

“So I remind you of someone, then.”

Something unseen swept across her face. Like she’d heard the echo of an echo, or the fading words of a near-forgotten song. “Yes,” she said slowly, gazing at him still, and Ben wondered how someone so dead could look so inexplicably alive. “Yes, I think you do.”

\--

It became a game, of sorts. 

“Your bodyguard.”

She laughed. “No.”

“An infamous baker.”

“Mm,” she pretended to consider. “Possibly. What sorts of things do infamous bakers do?”

“Sneak cayenne pepper into their fondant, I imagine.” He hadn’t uttered something so ridiculous in years. It was the sort of thing someone with an imagination would say. Ben didn’t have an imagination. He hadn’t worn a color other than black in years. 

“I think you’re selling bakers short. They’re as murderous as anyone else. Even more so, maybe. All that experience with knives.”

“You’re thinking of chefs.” 

She made a motion like she wanted to flick his nose. “Bakers use knives. I met a Besalisk once. He made the best cakes in the Deep Core. One of his hands was always holding a knife.” 

Ben tried to take her words in stride. She said things like that sometimes—passing references to places or people that felt like something out of a fever dream. “Okay. What about a brother?”

“Absolutely not.” 

The little swoop of pleasure in Ben’s gut was completely unwarranted. It didn’t matter _who_ he reminded her of—she was haunting the house and soon, he assumed, all of it would end. He wasn’t anything more than a distraction. A blip on the timeline of her very, very long future. 

But it made him selfishly happy all the same. He didn’t want her to look at him like he was her brother. 

“A politician.”

She paused for a moment, but soon shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Do you remember where you worked? Maybe we passed notes during boring office meetings.” 

“You don’t strike me as someone who would willingly work in an office,” she immediately said, but there was a distance to her tone. She was thinking. He’d known her long enough to notice the signs: a slight tightening of her lips, the stilling of her hands. 

So they might have worked together. Part of him wanted to pry further and ask if she could remember specifics, but she didn’t look especially pleased. It would be just his luck if he reminded her of a former boss. A cruel one with exacting standards.

Better to stay quiet.

He turned his attention back to his iPad. He’d paused the YouTube video when he saw Rey materialize in the kitchen. 

The sounds of cooking filled the space. 

His shelves had slowly filled over the months. A stand mixer permanently graced his countertop. The drawers were full of things he hadn’t known existed until he’d found recipes that called for them: a potato ricer, a mandolin, and something called a spiralizer. He owned a butcher knife. He had _used_ a butcher knife. 

He was still shit at most of it, but he’d learned early on that Rey had an abject fascination with food. If he couldn’t find an excuse to visit the attic, he could usually lure her down by opening his fridge. 

Tonight was spaghetti with handmade noodles. The trash can was slowly filling with failed attempts, but a new batch was currently boiling on the stove. He poked at the water, unhopeful. If this didn’t work, he was officially out of eggs. 

“I think—” Her voice startled him. “I think we did work together.”

His eyes drifted back to the water. Why did he dread hearing more? “That’s good,” he made himself say quietly. “Another clue.” 

_Please don’t say anything else. I don’t want to know._

He sensed her move closer. “You’re upset.”

“I’m not upset.”

“Worried, then. That I hated you.” 

He swallowed thickly. “No.”

“Why would it matter?” she asked gently. “I don’t hate _you_.” 

It was embarrassing, how much hearing that meant. Normal people weren’t concerned with the opinions of the dead. Of course logic said she wasn’t dead at all—just a figment of his imagination. The sad consequence of someone who had spent years longing for affection.

He didn’t trust himself to speak, so he offered an acknowledging nod. The timer on his watch beeped. He stirred, frowning at the foam. 

“I looked familiar to you, once.”

The noodles still weren’t ready. Not able to use straining them as a distraction, he looked up. Conveyed his confusion with a frown. 

“The day we met?” she prompted. She was so close to him. If she were real, he’d feel the whisper of her breath on his skin. He wanted her to leave. He wanted her to come closer. “After we said hello. We talked about dust.” 

He winced, hearing that. Fucking hell, they had. Dust. _Couldn’t be smoother, Solo._

She waited for him to speak. When he didn’t, she sighed a frustrated sigh. “You looked at me like you’d _been_ looking for me. But also like you didn’t realize I’d been lost in the first place.”

Where she stood, the edge of his skin was buzzing. Suddenly, he remembered. “You’re right.”

She grinned up at him proudly. “See? So maybe I should be the one asking the questions. Do I remind you of a girlfriend?”

He almost choked. “No.” 

“A sister.”

“I’m an only child.” 

“A co-worker? Check your noodles.” 

Like a robot badly in need of oil, he jerked his arm toward the colander. “No, I—” There was a discernable difference in the air by the sink. He could breathe again. “I’ve never worked with many women.”

“That’s reproachable.”

“I’ve never worked with many people, period.” He tested the feel of a noodle with his thumb and prayed she’d stay by the stove. 

She did. “By choice?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you said you fought in a war?”

“That was the last time.” His hands hesitated above the stack of plates. She couldn’t eat, but it felt rude to pretend he wouldn’t share. He grabbed two, then pivoted toward the tableware. 

“Are you lonely?”

He managed not to trip, but the plates rattled loudly onto the table. He looked over his shoulder. 

She wasn’t fidgeting. _I’ve had practice_ , she’d once said. _At waiting._ Her hands rested at her sides, palms open, fingers lax. Her legs looked strong under the fabric of her pants. He noticed that some hair had escaped one of her little buns, that he wanted to tuck it back and keep it untamed in equal measure. 

There were other details he could point to, like how he could never quite see the shape of her feet. Her calves blurred down into a hazy nothingness. He could describe her height (tall) or her competence (brilliant) or the way she tended to smile with her whole face (devastating), but had a much harder time describing their combined effect. How she made him feel. 

She was standing in his kitchen and she was looking at him and all he knew was that he liked it. That the world wouldn’t feel right if it didn’t happen again tomorrow.

_Are you lonely?_

“Not anymore,” he said, and surely she could hear the thrum of his heart.

She smiled. “Good.”

\--

This had to make him a bastard. This had to mean he was just as perverted and base and unhinged as he’d always feared. 

_Rey, on the bed. Legs open, her fingers slick._

He pumped harder, tilting his hips.

_She’d moan when he settled on the bed, his hands on her thighs, spreading her wider so he could look, moaning again when he took his thumbs to her lips, petting and stroking and nudging them apart until she was wholly bare to him, so he could see where she was the wettest, how she’d clench and more would escape just for him._

The pillow was no longer sufficient to suppress his grunts of pleasure. This was illicit and _wrong_ and she didn’t even exist, there was no future to this, no happy ending. 

_He’d slide home so sweet. He’d fill her up and she’d take it, every inch. She’d clutch at the skin between his shoulders and call him by his name._

He’d almost come in the shower. Would have, if not for the surge of guilt that stilled his hand. Guilt and a dawning sense of stupidity. 

Because this was stupid. He could never have her. This would only ever be an unfulfilled fantasy and he’d already spent too many years trying to convince himself he was happy with reality. With the way things were. He didn’t need anyone, he _didn’t_. It was safer, living like this, like—

_“Ben,” she’d gasp, and tug at his hips because he couldn’t move, didn’t want to come after a single fucking thrust. So he’d stall and they’d kiss and it would somehow be worse and so much better all at the same time._

He was there, right on the edge. His toes curled. It was hard to take a full breath. Everything was building, his muscles were tense, his eyes were squeezed shut and it was going to happen, he was going to come and he was almost _terrified_ of it, he—

Stopped. 

His lip bled when he bit it. 

For a moment he felt suspended. Like someone with slippery fingers held his heart over a chasm. Like his existence wasn’t guaranteed. 

The fingers on his right hand trembled. They had to grip _something_ , wanted to curl around his cock so badly that he had to fist the sheets instead. His dick twitched, bobbing hard enough to tap at his belly. It _ached_ and it took everything, absolutely everything not to roll over and hump the mattress, to find relief, but he didn’t. 

He just…couldn’t. 

_“I love you,” she’d say, and he’d feel whole._

\--

It was snowing and there were two cups of tea on the table. One was left untouched. 

Ben took another sip and told himself he didn’t want whiskey instead. “Lawncare.”

“What’s a lawn?” 

“Your gardener, then.” 

“If I had a garden, I’d take care of it myself.” She seemed to lose herself in the thought of it—resting her cheek on one knee while the other absently swung under the table. He still couldn’t see her feet. She sighed, a bit wistful. “Have you ever gardened?” 

“One look at my backyard would answer that question. I’m glad you can’t see it.” He’d been so grateful when the weather turned frosty; the weeds had finally withered and he no longer felt guilty about letting them live. They’d flourished into a veritable sea. “I can’t even grow a tomato. Real flowers would be a joke.”

“I thought tomatoes were flowers.”

“Where did you hear that?” He remembered the day she watched him make a BLT. He’d had to explain what a tomato _was_. 

“You left your little screen out in the kitchen last week. I investigated.”

The mug paused halfway to his mouth. “You investigated?” 

She wriggled her transparent fingers, a slight frown on her face. “Yeah. Sometimes I can—there’s this energy? Like in your lamps and the cold box.”

“Electricity,” he said numbly. 

“Sure. I can feel it, like it wants to talk. So I do.”

He still hadn’t moved his mug. “You had a conversation with my iPad and it told you that tomatoes were flowers?”

“You ask a lot of questions.” She said it fondly, like she didn’t much mind. “And it wasn’t a real conversation, not like you’re thinking. I just accessed YouTube.”

“You just—” he cut himself off before he repeated her words. He’d always been selfishly glad that he didn’t have to share Rey’s presence, but he almost wished for another witness. The world was slowly being blanketed in white, his tea was going cold, and his ghost liked watching YouTube. One of those things felt not like the others. 

It couldn’t be helped. Slightly strangled, he asked, “Do you do this often?” 

The snow had finally caught her attention. She stared like it was something miraculous. Like part of a dream come to fruition. “No,” she said absently, and turned more fully to the window. 

That was that, then. 

They sat in silence. Still transfixed by the window, Rey occasionally gave a little hum of pleasure. 

Feeling wrong for it, he shifted in his chair. He hadn’t come in five days. 

Not for lack of trying. Having Rey around had recently become its own brand of torture. It didn’t matter where he was, now—cooking in the kitchen, working out in the basement, wondering if he should buy art or shelves for the hallway walls—Rey tended to find him. Rey with her smile and endearingly strange questions. 

_Do you know anything about gravitational fields? (No.) Can you make things float? (Like in water?) Have you ever heard of a harmonic oscillator? (Definitely not.)_

He always answered as best he could, but clearly hadn’t provided enough enlightenment. He suspected he’d been replaced by technology. Technology she could use, apparently, and that wasn’t a road his brain felt secure enough to travel down alone. It was too messy. 

Messy like how after she asked her questions, she settled as closely as she could. She read his work email over his shoulder or joined him chopping onions at the counter and his dick didn’t care that she wasn’t alive—his dick insisted he remember the shape of her hands because it wanted to be _touched_ by those hands. His lips agreed. He’d caught himself imagining the salty taste of her skin. He wondered if she was ticklish, if she’d squeal when he nosed at the base of her neck or howl when he licked between her legs. 

These fantasies were dastardly vivid. More so every day. They sent him scurrying to the shower or his mattress, palming his dick and biting back gut-deep groans because every time it got that much harder to stop. Because he always stopped. Because he was an asshole, but he couldn’t be an asshole to Rey and the things he imagined doing to her were _filthy_ and she was a fucking ghost, she was dead, she deserved a memorial with pretty white flowers not a hermit’s explicit dreams. 

“Why can’t I see your backyard?”

His brain felt like a computer caught mid-boot. Not sure if she’d find it hurtful, he tried to be gentle when he said, “Because you’re haunting my house. Ghosts can’t…you stay where you’re found.” 

She turned back from the window. “We do?” 

“In my experience,” he said, much slower than before. 

She seemed to consider his words. Then she seemed to throw them away. 

It was odd not to hear the thunk of her feet as she slipped off the table’s edge. 

“What are you—?” he started, but she was already gone. 

His heart gave a painful thump. _Gone._

He had too many clear childhood memories of this not to panic. Ghosts couldn’t leave where they were meant to stay. Arno had been so excited to fly, but he’d disappeared the minute he tried joining Ben in Han’s truck. Luis had chased a bluebird and never come back. Isak made a game of seeing how far he could stray, but one day he was too daring. Ben watched him fade away.

Rey couldn’t fade away.

The chair fell the floor when he jumped to his feet. 

_I’m not ready_ , he thought wildly, racing to the front door. _I’m not ready, I’m not ready, I haven’t even said goodbye._

He didn’t bother to close the door after he flung it open. A distant part of his brain told him he wasn’t wearing shoes, that his toes were already burning from cold. His breath was a cloud born of bellowing gasps and he turned left and right, spinning, searching for—

“You forgot a coat,” a voice yelled. 

Across the street was an empty lot. Kids claimed it in the summertime for tag and left sad soccer balls to rot in the bushes during winter. Rey stood firmly in its center. 

Ben’s chest heaved, too close to a sob. His hands were shaking. 

“Put one on and join me.”

Slowly, almost surprised his knees agreed to bend, he walked across the street. 

She was waiting for him, hazy as always but no hazier, her head tilted in affectionate confusion. She motioned at his chest when he was close. “You’ll get cold.” Her brows furrowed. “That’s what happens, right? You get cold in the snow.” 

It was hard to answer. “Yeah.” 

“Yeah?” She seemed pleased to be right. “Well then shouldn’t you go back?”

There was an unfamiliar pressure behind his eyes. “I can’t,” he said, and it was the truth.

\--

Christmas loomed in a way that only mass-level marketing could manage. Ben hadn’t planned on celebrating—much less decorating—but Rey had started humming carols and his iPad always seemed to unlock to a recipe for gingerbread. She hadn’t been lying about technology. It was disconcerting in a way he couldn’t explain to see her standing in front of an old radio, reaching out a hand and idly chatting as the dial fluttered to the right station. 

His rooms were filled with holiday music. But it wasn’t enough. 

“Could we do that?” She pointed to one of his neighbor’s houses. At night the colored bulbs reflected on the snow. The whole street had heard the couple arguing as they’d decorated, but they managed in the end: plastic toy soldiers lined their driveway, wire outlines of deer stood proud with red blinking noses, huge ornaments sparkled on any reachable branch. 

It was a horrible mish-mash of decoration, in Ben’s opinion, but Rey loved it. She had memorized the minute their timer kicked on the lights and insisted she and Ben watch. Every night. 

But it wasn’t enough. “I think it’d look nice,” she wheedled. “Just a few lights?” 

He couldn’t tell her no. 

Somehow his heart survived their first outing. And their second. He insisted he could go to the store alone—or even better, order what he needed online—but she insisted they shop. She wanted to see the options with her own ghostly eyes. 

He’d stopped the car every fifteen feet on their inaugural trip, his eyes on Rey more than the road, but she only growled at him to keep going, stop wasting time, didn’t they want enough daylight to string everything up tonight? 

The idea of shopping with a ghost was almost odd beyond bearing, but shopping with Rey was easy. Almost addictive. She kept close, her eyes a bit distrustful when strangers wandered too near, and whispered her questions even though Ben doubted anyone would notice. No one stared at him like he was walking with a ghost. If they couldn’t see her, surely they couldn’t hear her. 

He didn’t tell her to leave, though. Maybe it was a sad thing to cherish, but he liked that she went to him for answers. He liked the faint zap of electricity when her hand passed through his own or when she brushed against his side. It was dangerous, liking these things, but each _she’s going to leave and never come back_ and _this will be our first and only Christmas_ was washed away by her excitement. 

There wasn’t time to dwell; he had to fill his cart. 

\--

His kitchen was a mess. Rey had been encouraging him to cut out naughty shapes in the shortbread dough for the past half hour, and between pretending not care that she’d actually uttered the word ‘dick’ in his kitchen and trying to devote two brain cells to the recipe, it was no wonder he missed the knock on the door. 

Rey was the first to realize. “Someone’s here.” 

His hands were covered in flour. “Are you sure?” he asked, but then he heard it. A light but insistent tapping that echoed down the hall. 

He frowned, brushing his palms against his pants. Unless Rey had finally managed to hack into his Amazon account, he hadn’t ordered anything. His neighbors had long since given up trying to engage him in conversation. Salespeople wouldn’t brave weather this cold, and he couldn’t imagine one person who’d rather see him in person than call on his phone. 

The knocking continued. 

He looked to Rey, who shrugged. “You should probably see who it is.” 

“Right.”

Unhappy to leave the warmth of the kitchen, Ben stalked down the hall, immediately frowning when he noticed the car in his driveway. They couldn’t park—that much was obvious. Half of the SUV was angled into his lawn. Thank fuck the ground was frozen. 

He snapped the door open. “What do you—mom?” 

“Ben?”

No matter how much he blinked, his mother continued to stand on his porch. She was even tinier than he remembered, her hair grayer and her face more lined. Her hands were hidden by a pair of chunky mittens; he wondered if she still wore his father’s ring. 

“You going to invite me in?” she asked, brusque but warm, and stepped forward before he answered. 

Wordlessly, he moved aside. 

This had to be a dream. He watched silently as Leia unwrapped her scarf and stuffed it into her hat. Her hair was short, twisted back into a complicated-looking pattern on the back of her head. 

She looked around the room and Ben couldn’t guess what she thought. There were homemade snow globes on the coffee table. Rey had watched a thousand videos and taught him how to wrap up the extra boughs into garland, which he’d strung above the fireplace. There were no presents under the tree but there _was_ a tree. They made a new ornament every day. Candy canes cut out from his cereal boxes. Misshapen noodles strung together like a first-grader’s art project. Too much tinsel. Gingerbread people next to gingerbread stars. 

“My new office is nearby, you know.”

He stayed quiet. It didn’t seem like the kind of comment that needed a response. 

She nodded like he’d actually spoken. “I drive by when I can. You might not remember doing it, but you told me your address. I know how you feel about the past, so I’ve kept my distance. Figured you’d reach out when you were ready.” Her eyes left his face to take in the room once again. “But I noticed you’d decorated.” 

Defensiveness deepened his voice. “I did.” 

She turned her gaze back, assessing whatever clues his face managed to give away. He didn’t like it. “You decorated quite a bit.” 

He shrugged, looking at his feet. His hands crept inside his pockets. 

“I’m not judging you, Ben,” she said, gentle but firm. “I just thought it was worth a visit. We never managed to decorate much when you were younger. Never really celebrated. So when I drove by and noticed your lights, I didn’t know if…” 

“If I’d gone crazy?” he asked flatly. 

“If you’d met someone.” 

Unbidden, Ben thought of Rey in the kitchen. And then he must have _looked_ toward the kitchen, because Leia immediately turned in the same direction. 

“Is she here?” Hope glittered bright in Leia’s eyes, and before Ben could stop her, she headed down the hallway. 

Ben remembered being younger. He remembered the way his mother had pretended. If anyone could see Rey, it was her and he wasn’t ready, this wasn’t the time, what if she scared Rey away and she never came back, what if they _spoke_ and Rey hated what she heard and what if Leia learned that he was in love with a ghost? 

He chased his mother, his heart hammering when he slid into the kitchen. 

His mother was alone, frowning at the cookie trays. 

“She’s not here,” he found himself saying, and cursed because _she’s not here_ was not the same as _she doesn’t exist_ and he was only digging himself a deeper hole. 

His mother was smart. She took in the full Tupperware and radio with its soft melody and the bit of holly on his table. All things not-Ben. “I see,” she said, just like she used to do when he told her a half-truth. 

“I was just baking,” he said helplessly. 

She nodded. Then she seemed to come to a decision. “Do you want help?” 

Maybe it was the music. Maybe it was because he’d told Rey about his family and she listened for hours. About his dad and how Ben pretended not to miss him but did. About growing up with nannies and resenting his parents and punishing them in a thousand different ways but mostly just managing to punish himself. She’d sat close when he talked about his mother. He knew what she’d say now. 

So he swallowed. “Sure.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a few days late. I really, really struggled with this one.

By the time his mother left, Ben was exhausted—both from baking and creatively lying. She’d been happier than he ever remembered: pleased by the prospect of meeting this stranger who convinced her grumpy son to stand on a ladder and string lights and bake cookies in double batches. 

He took a shower. He checked his phone once before turning it off, shocked to see the date. He’d wake up to Christmas Eve. 

Wondering where Rey had gone led to thinking about Rey which led to his dick reminding him that it had been _weeks_ and that this wasn’t sustainable, this self-imposed abstinence. People jerked off to fantasies all the time. How was this different? He couldn’t have her, but he could _imagine_ having her, and she wasn’t harmed in the process. It was all in his head. 

His hand crept under his boxers. 

It was so easy to imagine a life with Rey—a _real_ Rey. He’d make her breakfast and she’d laugh when he burned the sausages. Kiss him when he brought her coffee. He’d wave as she drove away to work and he’d think about her while she was gone. At night she’d join him in this bed and she’d hold him and they’d share breath and it would be the best gift he’d ever—

“Ben?”

He yelped, scrambling so quickly that he nearly fell out of the bed. 

Her sweet voice again: “Are you okay?” 

Looking at her was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. He could only manage it for a second, meeting her eyes between one blink and the next, his face hot. “Yes,” he said, strangled. Where was he supposed to put his hands? He slapped them on top of the sheets, spreading his fingers wide for good measure. _See?_ they conveyed. _Look how obviously we are not touching an erection._

She eyed his hands with confusion, waiting for a better answer. 

“I was—” _Thinking of you. Ready to come for the first time in weeks._ “Itching.”

Fuck. 

“You seem…embarrassed.” She said it like it was the silliest, most farfetched possibility. 

He clamped his lips shut. 

She made a little sound of concern, closing the gap until she stood by the bed’s edge. If she were real, the covers would rumple at her touch. “Can I see?” she asked, and pointed between his legs. 

He blinked up at her, his chest rising and falling too quickly. This wasn’t real. He _knew_ his dick was tenting the sheets, could picture in his mind’s eye just how swollen he’d become. Even the weight of cheap cotton felt oppressive on his skin. The smallest shifting of his hips was an unignorable tease—had been for days. Fresh sweat collected on his temples, matting his hair. 

Rey wanted to see. 

His lips felt numb. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” 

“Why?”

He floundered for words, feeling very much like a man on the cusp of drowning. “Because,” he swallowed thickly, “I don’t really have an itch.” 

That should do it. Rey may have died in a different world, but she wasn’t clueless. Some things had to transcend age and time. She’d instructed him in dissembling, fixing, and reassembling his radio without knowing a single word for the parts; she had to know the ins and outs of masturbation. He hadn’t been subtle. Still, he waited for her to answer like he waited for his doom. 

It was hard to read her face. She didn’t seem shocked to hear him admit to lying, but she also didn’t look at peace. More like she’d been handed a familiar book in an unknown language.

Finally, she moved her hand. Another gesture at his dick—this time, a bit more urgent. “I want to see.” 

Ben wanted to crawl his way out the door and into the street. Perhaps a benevolent stranger would drive him to a new home. One where he didn’t stand the risk of exploding from sheer embarrassment. “You don’t, though.” 

“You’re hard,” she said simply, and if there wasn’t a bed he would have fallen to the floor. “You were making yourself feel good. I’d like to watch.” 

He no longer felt one with his own body. “You want to watch?”

She nodded. 

There had to be something he could say. Some way to make her realize what she was really asking because on no possible plane of existence could she want _this_. Dumbly, his brain settled on: “But I’m naked.”

“I would hope so. That feels best.”

As if from a great distance, he heard himself moan. Breathless, like he’d been punched from the inside out.

She gave an encouraging smile. “I used to do it in my bed, too. Quieter than you, though. At least after I joined the Resistance. Too many ears too close.” A thoughtful noise. “Noses, too. You could always smell when someone came.”

_Did you come on your fingers, or did you use something else? Who were you thinking of, when you made yourself wet?_

He clung to the last threads of his sanity. “I didn’t know I was being loud. I’m sorry. I’ll—” Helplessly, he cast his gaze around the room for a solution. All he saw were white walls. “I’ll be quieter. I didn’t mean to—”

“Would it help if I did it, too?”

His hands spasmed, hearing that—a quick jerk, like he accidentally touched a hot burner. “What?”

She was already climbing on the bed—or at least pretending to. Sometimes her ghostly physics cared about the shape of his world and sometimes it didn’t. He never tried to pay attention to the places where her body should touch a chair or a counter or a table. 

He paid attention now, though. It was slightly unsettling: the outline of her legs sunk partway through the topmost cover. When she scooted to the foot of the bed and positioned herself between his ankles, his mattress did not squeak. The covers did not rustle. He told himself it didn’t matter. 

It didn’t take long before he was distracted by her hands. Her hands on her waist. Her hands quickly unclasping her belt. The belt that was tossed and promptly disappeared. The pants that soon followed and were joined by her arms wraps and her tunic and a stretchy band of fabric she used in place of a bra. 

She was naked. The whole process had taken two lifetimes and no time at all. 

“Push down your blanket,” she instructed, no-nonsense. “You know what I want.” 

It took conscious, strong-willed effort to obey. 

He felt overwhelmed—his attention tugged in too many directions at once. There was the coolness of the air on his stomach, then his cock. There was Rey with her spread legs and her fingers already pumping, her voice whispering soft encouragement— _please do it, Ben, I know you can_ —until he took himself in a sweat-slick grip. There were the noises she made—pleased hums when he stroked, disappointed ones when he had to stop, happy sighs when she rubbed at her clit. 

All of it was a dream. Torturous and wonderful. He was lucky and he was cursed. 

“What would you do,” she asked, her words reedier than before, “if you could touch me?”

Ben screwed his eyes shut, panting. “I would—I would—” He had to stop stroking when he heard her gasp. His hands made fists in the sheets. “I’d kiss you.”

“Kiss me where?”

“Everywhere, I’d—”

“Would you kiss my breasts?”

“ _Fuck_ , Rey. Yes.” 

“I want you to touch yourself. Just your nipples.” She said his name when he didn’t, a small chastisement. “Ben.”

Groaning, he did. This wasn’t—it wasn’t something he normally did, touching his chest. Hadn’t thought it was worthy of attention. But for Rey he tried: first with his thumbs, feeling awkward, and then with his fingers, rubbing and rolling and breathing harder because the more he touched _here_ the more he wanted to touch _there_ and there was a tugging in his gut each time his nails gently scraped, his dick bobbing against his stomach, dribbling fresh patches of wetness, and fuck, he could come—he could _come_ like this, Rey’s words in his ears and his own hands almost cruel. 

“Stop.” 

He made an embarrassingly pitiful noise. 

“Look at me, Ben. Please.” 

He shook his head. He couldn’t. Here in the darkness it was safe: he couldn’t see the bedroom door through her chest. He could pretend her orders were the orders she gave right before he pounced and pinned her to the mattress. Before he slid inside, so warm and tight. In the darkness that was possible. He could pretend. 

But she spoke again, pleading. “Can you open your eyes?”

He did. He hoped they weren’t wet. 

It could have been a trick of the light, but her cheeks looked flushed. The curls between her legs were glistening wet, trapped against her skin with sweat and slick. And there—there was the pink of her cunt, clenching once as he watched. He could see her entrance, right where he’d go, and his hand was out and reaching before his brain could object. He just wanted to touch, to feel her heat, and how, _how_ could he have let it go this far? There was no coming back from this. He was already lost. Gone. He—

“Listen to me.” 

His gaze snapped to hers. He felt like she’d stripped him of his skin and laid claim to his soul. 

“You said you’d kiss me.” One of her hands left to tug at her nipple; her other was gently swirling, teasing her clit. Her hips twitched when she got too near. “Do you know what I’d do to you?”

He shook his head, frantic. He couldn’t hear this; he wasn’t strong enough. “Rey, I—”

“I’d tell you you were good. Because you are. No, keep your eyes open. On me.” She waited until he did, then continued, her brows scrunched together in both earnestness and concentration. “I’d kiss you, too. On your mouth—do you know how much I think about your mouth?—and your strong arms and your hands. And your cock, Ben. I think I’d worship your cock. I think I’d suck it until you cried.”

He could feel the phantom promise of her words. His dick jerked against his stomach, the head of it past purple, the feeling bordering on pain. He whimpered once. Still so pitiful. 

“I’d stop, though. Before you came. I’d want you to come inside. Would you want that, too?”

“Fuck,” he gritted, his hand flying down only to curl an inch above his cockhead. He would come the instant he touched. One stroke. “Yeah, I’d—I want it. I want it so much.” 

“I know. I know you—” She stopped herself, biting her lip. She was close, too. “I’d let you fuck me and I’d love it, Ben. I know I’d love your cock.”

She was going to _break_ him. He would be nothing but a shattered echo of a shadow. He was close, so close, he—

“I know you’d hold me when I came. I know you’d kiss me sweet. I’d tell you how much I loved it—everything you did, every word. I think I’d hold you and never let you go. Can you touch yourself? Think of us, how it’d feel if—”

The touch was almost beyond bearing. He came on the first downstroke—silent but violently, his back bowing, his head flung back on the pillow, his ears full of her cries as she joined him. 

Rationality flew elsewhere. His mind was reduced to simple observations. The dampness of the bed. The echoing throbs from his cock. The harsh exhalations of his breath. The twitches in his legs and an ache in his gut. Drying tear tracks on his cheeks. 

A voice near his ear. Laced with satisfaction. “I knew it’d be the same,” she whispered.

His eyes flew open. 

She was next to him, still naked, her cheek resting on the bent angle of her arm. The way she was looking at him, it was…it was like she was seeing something she’d seen before. 

He felt sluggish. Too exhausted to properly think. But he still had to ask. She couldn’t say something like that and expect him not to ask. 

Before he could open his mouth, she was gone. 

\--

He slept soundly, his body well and truly exhausted. Memory muddied by the early hour, he reached across the mattress when he woke, confused when his hands only met the coolness of the sheets. 

After that, it was easy to get out of bed. 

He showered again, if only to reassure himself that it hadn’t been a dream. His come had dried clear. Washing it away triggered too many memories—the shape of her body, the visible flush to her cheeks, the way she’d looked at him and woven a cruel dream—but he did it anyway, too rough with the washcloth. He scrubbed hard enough to pinken his skin. 

The kitchen was already obnoxiously bright. Snow-reflected sun poured through every window, making it horrifically obvious how much flour he’d left on the floor. 

Dutifully, he mopped. Once he finished, he brewed a half pot of coffee. Once he drank it, he brewed another and hid his iPad under the sink. 

For the first time in weeks, he left the house alone. 

There was no particular place he had to be. Mostly he wasted the hours pulling into and promptly leaving parking lots. The roads were madness: poor weather on top of last-minute shoppers had him taking side roads, purposefully seeking out stores he expected to be closed. More than one of them had signs out front, all some variation of _Seasons Greetings_ in glittery, obnoxious font. A younger Ben would have smashed them. Older now, he just felt tired. 

He found himself in a cemetery, driving slowly. It wasn’t as deserted as he’d thought: no visible direction was free of at least one living body. Some were hanging wreaths, some staggered to new graves, and some sang cheerful songs. 

Ben didn’t see a single ghost. 

Ghosts had filled the loneliest moments of his childhood, but they hadn’t stuck around. He figured they’d finally gotten the message: if they couldn’t stay, he didn’t want them in the first place. 

This was why, he reflected. Because sooner or later, he’d wonder why they left. 

\--

Rey could be waiting in his kitchen or gone from the house entirely. Ben didn’t know which idea terrified him more. 

His car had long since lost its heat. He’d pulled on his gloves ten minutes ago, but his coat was laughably inadequate and the occasional shiver had transformed into consistent, full-body tremors. A new snowfall had begun—the black paint of his hood slowly disappeared under a fresh layer of white. He watched without great interest, unmoving. 

_The same_ , she’d said, and he didn’t have an answer. The same as what?

He’d wracked his memory from the moment he fled. There was no trace of Rey in his past. His ghosts had always been inconsistent—coming one day only to leave for five, popping in to watch him eat dinner only to trail after Leia when she locked her office door. He never counted on their constant presence, but they were hard to forget. Most of them held some mark of their death. Or mentioned it. 

Rey had never told him how she’d died. Apart from her transparency, she didn’t _look_ dead, either. She’d broken all the rules he’d ever known: leaving the house; interacting with technology; staying and chatting for hours, sometimes weeks at a time. Masturbating with him in bed. 

He growled in the silence. It was the same wall he’d hit all morning: if she wasn’t a ghost, what else could she be? 

_The same, the same._

Maybe ghosts behaved differently in adulthood. Maybe these things were normal and he just didn’t know. The living had sex and dreamed up fantasies; maybe the dead did, too. Maybe she’d fallen for him the way he’d fallen for her and maybe she’d dreamed of them together and maybe last night was just as she’d pictured. The same. 

“Are you coming inside?” 

Ben’s scream got stuck in his throat, but he did manage to slam a startled fist into the steering wheel. “Jesus,” he gasped, because she was sitting in the passenger seat. 

“You left without me,” she said, and Ben was uncomfortably reminded of how often he’d uttered the same thing. The same way, too: like it was the expectation all along. A sad, fulfilled prophecy. 

He almost apologized, but then his anger surged. “You left _me_.”

Her eyes dipped to her lap, slightly sheepish. “I had to.” 

“You had to,” he repeated, voice flat. 

“Yes.”

When she failed to elaborate, he snatched his keys from the ignition. “This has been a very clarifying conversation. Thank you,” he spat, and jerked the door handle. A strong whoosh of freezing air slapped his face. 

Of course she almost immediately reappeared by his side. “You don’t understand.” 

“Correct.” The icy snow robbed him of a satisfying retreat. He had to walk slowly. “If only there was a way that I could.”

She made a frustrated noise. “Even if I explained, it wouldn’t make a difference. _I_ barely understand. It wasn’t until last night that I really remembered.” 

He stopped. “Remembered what?”

“Why I came.” 

Snowflakes were still falling. They passed through her body. He wondered what they’d look like if they could catch in her hair. 

His voice was unsteady. “And why did you come?” 

“To find you.” 

She said it like there could be no other answer. 

\--

Nothing was helping. 

Rey hovered nearby, never wringing her hands but somehow managing to convey the same level of concern. She offered to find a song on the radio. He declined. She offered up suggestions for their daily ornaments. Did he have any ribbon? Would he like to dehydrate his oranges? No, he said, and no. She asked if it was smart to drink so much so quickly and so early. He just grabbed the bottle and left the room. 

His mood was a violent ocean, churning and wild. Experience told him to hide his car keys, so he threw them behind the couch. Then he found them, dropped the whole ring into a bowl full of water, and flung it in his freezer. 

It wouldn’t stop him, but it would slow him down. 

Oddly enough, he wasn’t angry. Anger was an old, familiar friend; over the years, he’d learned how to conquer it. This was something else. This was a mountain he was expected to climb with no shoes, no map, and no air to breathe. 

Answers could help. They were the only way this ended, but he couldn’t make himself ask. He wasn’t sure he’d like what he heard. 

So he dusted his clean shelves and avoided looking at the unlit tree and left rooms as soon as Rey entered them. 

Generally speaking, she was back from wherever she’d gone the night before. In a soft voice, she occasionally warned him when she needed to pop away— _Ben, I have to go, but I’ll be back. I won’t be gone for long; I promise_ —and he pretended not to care while actually caring quite a bit. Last week he would have thought nothing of her random disappearances; today he felt them like a physical ache. 

His phone chirped more than usual. 

_**Mom:** Happy Christmas Eve, Ben._

_**Mom:** Thank you for the cookies. The office loved them._

_**Mom:** I’m taking the staff out for dinner next week. I’d love for you to join us._

_**Dameron:** question…can I rent your freakishly long arms to take down my xmas lights? i pay in pizza and good fucking booze_

_**Dameron:** ur mom gave me ur new number, btw. u coming to the party?!!_

_**Mom:** You can bring her too, if you’d like._

The light of his screen almost blinded him as he read; it was dark in the house. Evening swiftly approached. 

Rey returned each time as promised. He knew when she was back without looking. She tended to linger under doorframes, stepping forward only to hesitate and return. When she tried to speak, he mumbled a lie about needing to work. He fled to the spare bedroom and his laptop, sending emails that didn’t need to be sent and finalizing reports that weren’t due until the new year. 

She left him alone. Ironic, then, that she’d come to find him in the first place. 

Finding implied a kind of loss. That he’d been missing. He’d wrestled with that ever since she confessed. He didn’t _feel_ lost. He’d been here all along and wouldn’t waste the effort to worry except he couldn’t forget the way she’d said it. Like it was the truth. 

\--

“Lights,” she said simply, and he followed. It felt like an unbreakable tradition. Even today. 

They settled on the couch, knees on the cushions, eyes on the neighbor’s yard. She settled closer than she usually did. The hair on his arm stiffened straight. 

Any minute now. 

“I don’t want to lose you.”

He kept his eyes on the dark road and his mouth shut. 

“I don’t want to lose you because I already have. And I can’t do it again.” She sighed a shaky sigh. Her words were soft. She sounded like a thing close to breaking. “I know that doesn’t make sense. But it has to do with why I’m here.” 

If he didn’t look at her, he could ask it. He could be that brave. “Are you dead?” 

“No,” she said gently. 

He exhaled. This was a moment out of time. Nothing existed beyond them, the couch, and the road. Swallowing, he made himself ask, “Am I dead?”

She hesitated, and it was enough to make his knees weak. But she said, “No.” 

“Then I don’t…” His mind was a riot; the ocean of his thoughts threatened to swallow him down to a killable depth. “I found you in my attic,” he said helplessly. “I found _you_.”

“I’d been looking for years,” she whispered, her voice quivering. “Where I’m from, it’s…different. We understand so much more about the universe. We aren’t disconnected from the Force. Not everyone can feel it, but it’s there. Everywhere. Connecting everything living and dead and the past and the future. Some of us can channel it.”

“Like you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her nod. “And you.” 

He tried to laugh, desperate and humorless. “I’ve never been connected to anything.”

“That’s not true. You’ve seen ghosts.”

“I _saw_ ghosts. I haven’t in years.”

“I told you it was different here. But that wasn’t what I meant.” She took a deep breath. “I meant that you were strong with the Force in _my_ world.” 

Something inside him was threatening to collapse. “I’ve never been to your world.”

“No, but you were there all the same. A…version of you.”

“What happened to me?” he asked, but he already knew. 

The lights flickered on. He turned to see her face. Her eyes were wet. 

“You died.” 

\--

Tearfully, she spoke of a final battle. A years-long war. Epic, with words like good and evil used in earnest. Her Ben had been called Kylo, and Ben could only understand the very edges of her story, but managed to learn that Kylo had chosen the Dark before he’d chosen the Light. He was a Jedi. And Rey had loved him. 

Her universe forgot Kylo, but she never did. Their bond felt stretched, not broken, and that’s when she started to explore. Texts. Ancient shrines. Sages from every species and planet until she could confirm what she already knew: he was not gone. He just wasn’t _there_.

Then came the ritual. 

She’d descended into the depths of a forgotten temple with no intention to leave. Not until it worked. When she awoke, she was here. In his attic. Only she couldn’t recall why. 

“You seemed familiar, but…” she shrugged her shoulders. They were still on the couch. The hour was late. “It was like a dream. The longer I stayed, the more I remembered about my own universe. I knew I’d come for a reason. I just couldn’t remember what it was.” 

Something unpleasant slicked his stomach. “You came for someone else. You fell in _love_ with someone else.”

“I fell in love with _you_ ,” she said fiercely. “I see pieces of him in you now. I do. But you’re not the same.”

He turned his head to look at the floor. He’d felt it, sometimes, when she looked at him. Like they’d spent a lifetime walking side by side with hands held but faces hidden. There was an ugly, self-loathing urge to say it was impossible. Meaningless. That the only reason she loved him was because he reminded her of someone else. Someone powerful who commanded armies. A brilliant warrior from a famous bloodline. 

But if her soul recognized his; he recognized hers. He _had_ felt something in the attic. Something asleep had breathed a wakening breath in her presence. He had spent all his life bonding to no one and nothing but Rey wasted no time making him feel whole. 

He couldn’t explain it. If she asked him, he didn’t know what he’d say. 

“Recently I’ve learned how to…go back.” 

His eyes snapped up. “To your home?”

“Yeah, it’s—I’ve been saying goodbye.” At the look on his face, she continued. “There’s a way to—to come here. To stay. If you still love me, I’d like to try.” She swallowed. “Do you?”

“Do I love you?”

She nodded. 

He stared at her. Stunned. 

This was the part where he kissed her. He was meant to sweep her into his arms and kiss her breathless until she understood how laughably ridiculous he found her question in the first place. Books told him he didn’t need words to convey how he’d spent his day mourning her loss even though she wasn’t really gone. One taste of him was all she’d need. 

He’d tell her how seeing her face was the best part of his day. He’d confess how she was the only person he’d ever met who made him feel like his words mattered. Like he wasn’t alone. She’d know how hard it was for him to pull two plates or two cups and play pretend. How many hours he’d spent dreaming of a world where he could hold her hand. 

But his life wasn’t a book. He couldn’t kiss her because he couldn’t touch her and of _course_ he loved her. He just didn’t know how she could love him back. 

In the night’s shadows, her eyes seemed darker. Deeper. He held them as he said, “I’m not a Jedi.” 

There was only a moment of confusion before her face crumpled. “I know you’re not.”

“My mother is not a general. My father is dead, but I didn’t kill him.”

“Ben.”

“I’m not going to fuck you like he did. It wouldn’t—I couldn’t promise that it would be the same.”

“That wasn’t what I meant when I said—”

“I’ve never been the prince of anything, much less a planet. I’ve never been _off_ this planet and probably never will. I have a small house with a mortgage and a car and the plane my dad built. I haven’t flown it in years.” 

She was crying again. Very quietly. “I don’t care where we go. We can fly your plane together or we can let it rust away. I love _you_. Not because I like where you live or what you do. Not because of your family. I don’t care if you’re poor or if—” Her calm breathing dissolved. She stood up when he turned his head, chasing his eyes. “I love you because you made me breakfast, even when I couldn’t eat it. Because you’re smart and so fucking kind. Because you’re _good_. I wish you knew how good you were.”

He shook his head, defiant. “That’s not true.”

“It _is_ ,” she snarled. 

Her fierceness didn’t shock him. Just the idea that she might be right. She’d listened, hadn’t she? When he confessed to hating his parents? He’d only recently been able to hold a job. He’d been fired from a hundred different jobs for a thousand different things, all of them horrible. Smashed desks. Fist-sized holes in walls. He didn’t know his neighbors’ names or if they had children. Yesterday had been the first day he’d shared a room with his mother in years. 

Admittedly, Kylo sounded…fucked up. She said she’d loved him anyway. But maybe she just loved broken things. 

“I’ll never be him,” he muttered. 

She shook her head and gave a single, hollow laugh. “Thank any and every god. I’m not sure I could fight another war.”

“You would if you had to.” 

“I’d fight for you, too.”

“Because I remind you of _him_.”

“I can tell you no and I can promise it’s the truth. What matters more is if you believe me.” 

He didn’t know what to say. 

Her hands flexed and squeezed at her sides. Helpless. She seemed to realize how close this was to falling apart. “Ben, I don’t…I don’t have all the answers. I know the Force brought us together. Beyond that, we have to make our own choices. I’ve made mine.”

_You have to make yours_ hung heavy in the air. 

He didn’t have answers either. None of this should be possible. It was one thing to see ghosts; it was something else altogether to fall in love with a woman from a different universe. To hear her talk about laser swords in his living room on Christmas Eve. 

Unbidden, hope—gossamer thin, so delicate—took root in his mind. A shoot of leafy green brave enough to break through frozen ground. 

He could have this. 

This didn’t have to be the last time they spoke. There was a chance he could wake up to a Rey he could touch. He still wasn’t sure he deserved it, but they could have another Christmas. A lifetime of them. Memories. Something he hadn’t bought his house expecting to make. 

A new thought fell over his mind like a shadow. “If you…would you be okay? Coming here? Is it dangerous?” 

“Do you love me?”

That’s right. He hadn’t answered. “Rey,” he breathed. “Yes.”

Her shoulders—so tight before they’d nearly touched her ears—relaxed. She smiled. “Then nothing can stop me.” 

\--

The rest of the night passed in a haze. It felt too similar to nights they’d shared before. She insisted they make their last ornament, so they did. Ben baked salt dough and decorated the ugliest, worst-dressed Santa he’d ever seen. They left one plain in the kitchen. 

“For tomorrow,” Rey said. “For me.” 

The only difference was that she followed him to his room. 

Ben tried not to think of tomorrow. Whatever it was that she needed to do…it would either work or it wouldn’t. Rey seemed confident, but it was too easy to imagine something going wrong. Not much in his life had gone right. 

She told him she was eager to kick him out of the kitchen. “You try,” she said fondly, “but you still hold a knife like a murder weapon and not a tool.” And then, brightly, as she slid next to him on the mattress: “I want to build a garden. Is it hard to grow grapes?”

“Yes,” he said. “I think so.” 

“You like them a lot, though. I see you eat them all the time. I’d like to try.”

His heart squeezed. “We can try.” He realized that his stomach was knotting. He looked at the clock. Almost midnight. “When will you…?”

She followed his gaze, and laughed. “When I’m ready. I think I’ll wait until you fall asleep. Might feel more like Christmas, that way.”

“I don’t know if I can sleep,” he said honestly. 

“Then we’ll talk.” 

She told him about her life on Jakku. He liked listening to her describe the shifting tides of sand, but longed to hold her when she mentioned the scratches on her shelter’s wall. She never said the word _home_. 

She talked about their future and it made him nervous (wasn’t that how these things worked? The more you hoped for something, the more likely it was to fall apart?), but she kept asking about his plane and about Han and the words spilled out until Ben was talking about his favorite place to fly. He wasn’t sure if his uncle still owned the property, but he could ask. Would she like to come with him to meet his mother? 

Late night crept into early morning and despite himself, Ben felt his lids grow heavy. 

“Sleep,” she whispered, and he did. 

His dreams were odd bits of her storytelling— _his lightsaber crackled, reflecting off of the polished floor as he swung, desperate, calling on the power he needed and feeling it arc out, crumpling the droids as they converged, their metal now formless, where was Rey, he needed_ —and heartbreakingly normal visions of the future. He dreamed that she was a hot heat against his back, their covers warm in a chilly winter. There were flashes of traveling. Watching Rey try a margarita. Hiking somewhere—cresting a hill to see Rey already at the top, waving and waiting. Gripping his hand when he caught up. 

And then his eyes were open. 

Something was different. 

Slowly, his heart beating somewhere outside of his body, he rolled over. Brown eyes stared back into his own. _Rey’s_ eyes. 

“Good morning,” she said, and kissed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a bizarre little fic. I don’t blame you for being confused. I think it works best when it’s not over-analyzed, but here’s what I was thinking: When Kylo died in his universe, Rey’s bond helped her find him in an alternate one. For all of Ben’s fretting, he’s Kylo and Kylo is him. Same spirit, different place. How would that work? Well, time is a funny thing. I pretended like it didn’t matter. 
> 
> I promise that they love one another and all is well. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! <3 I’m @talltig on Twitter.


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